Australia ringfences state to save sheep from dingoes

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Farmers in Queensland have complained of an epidemic of dingoesGetty Images

Bernard LaganSydney

Published at 12:01AM, June 14 2014

Tens of thousands of wild dogs, some larger than wolves, have decimated northeastern Australia’s once vast flocks of sheep, forcing farmers and the Queensland government to plan for a fence longer than the British Isles.

There were more than six million sheep two decades ago in central Queensland, but this is down to a little more than million due in large part to marauding wild dog packs that have spread from the Outback into grazing lands and even the fringes of suburbia.

“We have an epidemic of wild dogs out here,” Rob Chandler, a farmer and mayor of the town